Charges dropped against mother who admitted suffocating baby

Nga Truong walked out of the courthouse a free woman today, after prosecutors dropped a murder charge against her in the Nov. 30, 2008, death of her 13-month-old son.

The charge against the now 19-year-old Ms. Truong was dropped by Senior First Assistant District Attorney Daniel J. Bennett this morning after a Feb. 25 ruling by Judge Janet Kenton-Walker suppressing Ms. Truong's alleged confession.

Investigators said Ms. Truong, a 16-year-old South High junior at the time, initially told them she found Khyle Truong unconscious in his crib, but later admitted suffocating the baby with a teddy bear.

Mr. Bennett said in the nolle prosequi, an entry in the court record reflecting a prosecutor's decision not to proceed with a criminal case after charges have been lodged, that Judge Kenton-Walker's suppression order left his office without enough evidence to go forward.

Ms. Truong, who has remained in custody without bail for nearly three years at the Chicopee Women's Correctional Center, was to be released upon her arrival at the courthouse later in the day, according to her lawyer, Edward P. Ryan Jr.

“As I said the first day I got the case and as I say today, she did not harm her child. The alleged confession was extracted from her involuntarily and was false. She would have confessed to killing Jimmy Hoffa if they asked her to,” Mr. Ryan said.

Judge Kenton-Walker found that Ms. Truong's statements to Detectives Kevin Pageau and John Doherty were not made voluntarily and that investigators did not offer her a “genuine opportunity,” as required by law, to consult with a parent, interested adult or lawyer about her right to remain silent before she spoke with police.

The death certificate on file in Worcester city clerk's office attributed the boy's death to “asphyxial death consistent with but not exclusively diagnostic of suffocation.” Streptococcal pharyngitis and trachea-bronchitis contributed to Khyle's death, according to the death certificate.

The judge also found that the detectives resorted to “deception regarding medical evidence” during the course of their interrogation and continually told Ms. Truong “that she was just a juvenile and if she would admit what she did she would remain in the juvenile court where she could get help.”

“When, as here, there exists a combination of trickery and implied promises, together with Nga's young age, lack of experience and sophistication, her emotional state, as well as the aggressive nature of the interrogation, the totality of the circumstances suggests a situation potentially coercive to the point of making an innocent person confess to a crime,” the judge wrote.

Her son was not the first child to die while in Ms. Troung's care. In 2000, when she was 8 years old, her 3-month-old brother, Hien Tuan Truong, died from what was later determined to be sudden infant death syndrome while she was watching him.